Japanese ‘Rental Grandmother’ Service Provides Much-Needed and Much-Loved Purpose …

A woman and her contracted grandma – credit, Client Partners When a Japanese handyman contractor faced an oversaturated market, they turned to a pretty unusual solution: a ‘rent-a-grandma.’ With few other jobs available for women over 60 other than house cleaners, the company realized that for the same reason a person might want to hire a male handyman in his 60s during a homebuilding project, someone might want to hire a grandmother for a homemaking project. Tokyo’s Client Partners started the OK! Obaachan (OK! Grandmother) service in 2011, and it’s become a hit. “I never get bored,” 69-year old Taeko Kaji, one of the rent-a-grandmas, told the Australian ABC. “I get to go out and have these experiences and that’s why taking this job was the right decision for me.” Client Partners allows customers to hire the services of guides and interpreters, but concern in Japanese society over run-of-the-mill, big city loneliness gave the company the idea to start renting friends, ‘aunts,’ and now even grandmothers. “Some people may never have had a mother in the first place,” Client Partners chief executive Ms. Ruri Kanazawa told the ABC. “Our grandmother staff members, who cook for the guests and act like a
Read More